Beltway Insider: Trump Gov’t Shutdown; Aligns with Pro-Lifers; Women’s March; Van Houten; Tom Petty

On the first year anniversary of President Trump's Inauguration, Senate sent a symbolic message and allowed the United States government to shut down over the refusal of bi-partisan support of a preventative measure that would keep government running.

According to Gallup, President Trump job approval, over the past week, remained constant at 40% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness as President remained constant at 55%.

The Trump Government Shuts Down

As Senate Democrats and Republicans failed to pass a preventive measure that would keep the government from shutting down, or lapsing in appropriations, which is the official term for budgetary shut downs, the American people are once again forced to tolerate the lack of bi-partisan leadership that fails to produce results.

Senators on both aisles use the annual budget to leverage issues which they believe are important or pressing enough to their particular constituency and outweigh the temporary hardships of a lapse in appropriations.

This is one of those seasons with two different sets of immigration issues standing between parties: President Trump wants senate to appropriate the money for the Border Wall and in 2017 he explained the costs would be 1.6billion. Today, one year later, the price tag for the Border Wall has ballooned to $20billion, a figure which was never mentioned over the past year.


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The President has refused to negotiate and remains firm on the status of 690,000 unlawful immigrants, those termed DACA, which the nation has witnessed the first of the deportations.

"The White House position, though, remains the same: that we will not negotiate the status of 690,000 unlawful immigrants while hundreds of millions of taxpaying Americans, including hundreds of thousands of our troops in uniform and border agents protecting our country are held hostage by Senate Democrats. We continue to remain anxious to reach a deal on DACA, and we look forward to resuming those negotiations as soon as the Senate Democrats reopen the government, " said Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short.

Agencies that may have been immediately shut down during the last budget crisis of 2013 are at this time are using the agencies unobligated balances, or contingency appropriation, to meet the day to day financial needs.

Furloughs are on an agency by agency basis, with non-essential personnel and services the first to experience the lapse.

"After working closely with the White House, with OMB, to review the exceptions allowed in the law for agencies to continue to operate if their work is necessary to protect life and safety, the CDC has announced this morning they will continue immediate response work and surveillance to protect Americans from seasonal influenza," OMB Director Mick Mulvaney said.

The Budget Blame Game has not escaped this White House either with the President's Men indicating Senator Schumer (D-NY) is the main force behind the failure of the budget to pass. With Schumer indicating there was a lack of clarity as to what the President was seeking. And the president's team has revised the request with each side offering concessions.

Unless the lapse is prolonged beyond the current payroll cycle most if not all government employees will receive their pay, including men and women in uniform, border agents and others singled out by Director Mulvaney. However, if the lapse continues into the next pay cycle the consequences may be more damaging.

President Trump, who was expected to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos, a small town in the Swiss Alps, where a who's who of present, future and past world leaders will be amassed. The President has said with the Budget crisis continuing his plans for Davos are now questionable and according to Director Mulvaney are "on a day-to-day basis."

The Blue Tsunami

Republicans are facing a backlash as voters are heading to the polls in GOP strongholds and coming up empty as voters, after one year of Trump policies, are choosing Democratic challengers.

The recent election of Doug Jones (D-AL), the first democrat to hold a Senate seat in Alabama in a quarter of a century.

Wisconsin, which deliver a strong showing for President Trump in the 2018 election and is the home of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, (R-WI) were shocked over the win of a democratic challenger in the 10th District for Wisconsin State Senate.

Patty Schachtner won a special election scoring a huge victory and sending shock waves through the Republican Party as most are expecting to handily win mid-terms on President Trump's coattails.

The people, after one year later after believing the Trump Campaign promises are voicing the same concern they felt in in 2009 during the global recession. This time it is not economics, it is reputation, and the voters are sending politicians who were not working for them, and not for themselves, home.

Senator Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House of representative also from Wisconsin, is facing re-election in November 2018.

President Supports March of Life

President Donald Trump has become the first sitting president to address Pro-Life March for Life via satellite. Vice-President Pence addressed the same group in 2017 making this presidency the only team in history to openly support the often times volatile group.

The pro-life movement has demonstrated for a total repel of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion supporting the women's right to determine her own choices over medical care and pregnancy.

Choose Today

Basing their decision on Biblical principal President Trump and Vice President Pence each of whom call themselves Christians may want to fact check any version of the standard King James version for scripture reference to supporting any group which takes freedom away from the individual as God's greatest gift to mankind was choice.

If Creation is one's belief system the right to choose begins in the Genesis 2:16-17, the account of God's commandment to Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge or "Good and Evil" Garden of Eden. Again Old Testament scripture call believers in Joshua 24:15 to, "Choose today whom you'll serve."

Each miracle recorded begins with a statement and a choice in The New Testament Christ prefaces every miracle with a choice, John 5:8, "Pick up your mat and walk," and in Matthew 12:13, "Stretch out your hand," and the women with the issue of blood, an untreatable hemorrhage, in Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; and Luke 8:43-48, who needed no words and made a mental choice to fight or die.

Freedom from Tyranny

We owe mankind the same freedom, chose today, freedom, as in our nation, which we fought for and continually fight for freedom from tyranny around the world, allowing citizens everywhere the freedom to chose the medical procedures, to determine toe course of action for their own bodies, the determination is personal, my life, my choice, my way.

Supporting the Pro-Life movement aligns themselves with a group who is known to be violent to resort to murder of physicians who perform abortions; to desecrate a fetus; to spew hate rhetoric at those who choose medical decisions contrary to their own.

While many Americans are anti-abortion, there are no Americans who support legislation that limits freedom to live life in the manner in which they determine maximizes their freedom.

(This of course doesn't advocate for fringe groups to exercise behaviors and beliefs that violate others.)

Second Annual Women's March Draw Thousands

The second annual Women's March, a grass roots multi-national, intercontinental, demonstration birthed in protest over the election of Donald Trump and his misogynistic and abusive views toward women, held its second voice of change march.

Saturday, Day One of the two day planned demonstrations drew more than 600,000K supporters in Los Angeles. The activists and actresses Eva Longoria, Scarlett Johansson, Alfie Woodard, Olivia Munn, Natalie Portman, Alison Janney and Viola Davis energized the supporters with new direction.

The Women's March, which began last year as an anti-inauguration protest, has become a voice for change in the attitudes and policies directed at the Trump Administration and society at large that continues to disproportionality discriminate in pay and opportunity for all women, across the board, from the seasonal farm worker to the full-time marginalized and under paid female executive.

"Some pointed to history; others, like Viola Davis, delivered devastatingly powerful testimonies revealing their own survivor stories. "I am speaking today not just for the Me Toos, because I was a Me Too; but when I raise my hand, I am aware of all the women who are still in silence," Davis said, reported the Los Angeles Times

Angelinos joined those in the frozen Northeast who courageously challenged the cold temperatures to stand and voice their solidarity as the #MeToo movement has continued to embolden victims of sexual assault and harassment everywhere to join the millions of victims everywhere who stand unified in one voice for change in attitudes, laws, statues, and treatment

Marches filled the mall in Washington, D.C, Oakland, CA., had a stunning turnout with an estimated million marches. The crowd was estimated in New York City 200K to be in the 200K range with slightly more in Chicago. Cities across America, from the largest to the smallest with cities like Boise, Idaho, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, 32 marchers showed solidarity to what has become the second greatest demonstration for change in American history.

With all the issues surrounding the core ideals of the March, the initially protests against The Trump Administration, and now in the second year, the MeToo movement and the change in attitudes by the predominately male executives who have moved swiftly, after two decades of stone cold silence, to investigate, escalate, and penalize or terminate, have added fuel to the fires of change not allowing the embers of anger to die out.

The need to speak up, to be empowered, to show sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, brothers, husbands, sisters, mothers, grandmothers that we can all be a voice for change and that one person does make a difference.


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Participants urged others with call to action signs, "Stop Staying Fucking Neutral," and empowerment, "I know I'm Standing Up for Myself, I'm Such a Bitch" and statements of equality freedom and defense, "Keep your Policies Off My Body, My Body My Choice" and solidarity "I'm  With Her" with pink arrows pointing in every direction.

Supporters of the Women's March did not stand alone. Demonstration were planned throughout the world, with Marches planned in London, France, Greece and other more restrictive and dangerous cities. Women, some for the first time, stood without fear in a sea of women, and supporters believing that together we can exact change.

Manson Follower Leslie Van Houten Remains in Prison

Leslie Van Houten, the youngest follower of the Manson Cult, who actively participated in the Tate-La Bianca murders in the summer of 1969 terrorizing Los Angeles, has been denied parole by California Governor Jerry Brown.

Van Houten managed to convince the parole board for a second consecutive year she was fully rehabilitated sending the final decision to the Governor.

Governor Brown has repeatedly stated, while he is governor Van Houten will never see freedom.

An avid follower of Charles Manson, Van Houten had full knowledge of the Tate Murders, in which Sharon Tate, wife of Director Roman Polanski and pregnant at the time was brutally massacred along with Folger's Coffee Heiress Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, a hairstylist, Wojciech Frykowski, a screenwriter, and a visitor Steven Parent, in her Coldwater Canyon home before she participated in the La-Bianca murders restraining and stabbing Rosemary La Bianca 47 times with more than a dozen wounds inflicted by Van Houten.

She does not deserve the sympathy of the public as she a convicted and admitted killer has received what the law deems as sufficient punishment for a multiple murderer. If the death penalty hadn't been repealed she be dead by now.

Van Houten's list of prison accomplishments are impressive, a model prisoner it has been said, and without actual lifestyle choices, it can be said she performed well in a controlled environment. Her activities are monitored; she has no choice as to even what clothes to wear; her only choice is to remain in her cell or participate in activities that remove her from the confinement of her housing.

She has made the choice to keep her emotions in check as the guards have the power to inflict swift and harsh punishment. She understands, full well, the harshness of someone with the freedom to inflict severe punishment as she did the same in the summer of 1969 when she was the holding families hostage and they were begging for their lives.

Tom Petty Dies of Overdose

Toxicology testing has provided new insight into the death of rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Tom Petty. Family members released a statement indicating the former lead singer of the Heartbreakers and singer of  "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'" and "Running Down a Dream" died of an accidental overdose which led to cardiac arrest.

For more information on President Donald Trump: www.whitehouse.gov

Sources: Whitehouse.gov, Wikipedia.com,

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